by Joe Vizanko
Freeformed Hybrids
By
Joe Vizanko
Copyright 2013 Joe Vizanko
Edited by Nanci Arvizu @ Review-Worm
Ebook Cover Design by www.ebooklaunch.com
Table of contents
Chapter 1 “Scout”
Chapter 2 “The Proof”
Chapter 3 “The Situation”
Chapter 4 “Home”
Chapter 5 “Spaceship”
Chapter 6 “The Outpost”
Chapter 7 “Sam”
Chapter 8 “Alizia”
Chapter 9 “The Meeting”
Chapter 10 “Out of the darkness”
Chapter 11 “Homeward”
Chapter 12 “Council”
Chapter 13 “Chaos”
Chapter 14 “Storm”
Chapter 15 “Disturbed”
Chapter 16 “Discovery”
Chapter 17 “Into the Void”
Chapter 18 “Annihilation”
Chapter 19 “The New Divide”
About the Author
Contact the Author
Chapter 1 “Scout”
The Martian soil crunched beneath his feet as he struggled to keep from falling down. Between the sudden wind gusts and the wild temperature swings he almost gave up. The loose fitting suit just didn’t fit him that well making the climb up the sandy ridge that much harder. As he made it to the top the dead rover Scout came into view. He stood staring at if for a while wondering what the hell he was doing. A wind gust hit him like a freight train knocking him face down on the Martian surface. Slowly he made it too his feet as he lumbered toward the rover. It looked like a giant dead bug covered in dust. Several of its wheels were buried. The lifeless machine appeared to be slowly sinking into the red planet. He hesitated for a second.
Well here goes nothing.
He got down on one knee and found the dead batteries. Using the energy source from his suit he connected the power cable. The machine sprung to life as it re-booted itself. The camera head turned back and forth like an animal waking from hibernation. He backed up and stood in full view of the cameras. The rover took several pictures and sent them back home. As he shut down the rover he could not help but chuckle. He wished he could see the look on the faces of the operators when they received those images.
That should get their attention.
“Any contact from Mars?” Joe called out to Steve as he was leaving the gym.
“No, nothing for a few weeks now.” Steve sighed as if he lost one of his children. He took a long drink from his water bottle. “Sadly we are giving up on Scout. She had a good run though.” He shook his head and looked off into the distance. The loss really affected him.
“Well don’t worry. I think you will be pleasantly surprised tomorrow.” Joe replied with a devilish grin as he headed into the gym.
Steve glanced back at him puzzled.
Joe turned looking directly at Steve. “I think you will hear from the old girl again.” He closed the gym door and waved.
Steve flipped him the bird as he turned and walked toward his car. That’s an odd thing for him to say. He thought to himself as he headed for home.
On his drive into work the next day he didn’t think about the statement Joe had made. It was just a regular day at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He sipped stale coffee as he prepared for the morning status meeting.
An aid poked her head into his office. “Good new or bad news which do you want first?”
“Give me the good news first.”
“We momentarily had contact with the stuck rover.” Steve felt a chill run down his spine.
“That’s great, and the bad news?”
“Well that you better come see for yourself.”
Steve entered the rover control room as shocked pale faces turned to look at him. The tension was so thick it threatened to choke him as he made his way to the observation platform. On the large overhead screen before him there was a man in a spacesuit on what looked to be the surface of Mars.
The engineers kept reassuring him they had gone over it a hundred times. This image had come from Scout on Mars! Steve sat down and stared off into the distance thinking about what Joe had said.
“Impossible, that’s impossible.” Steve mumbled to himself. Then he turned to the crowd forming around him, "Okay, who did this? We all know tampering with this information will get you fired and a trip to San Quentin.” His voice shook with anger.
“Nobody messed with it. I was here when it came through.” One of the senior engineer responded. “Look at those boots, see how they disturb the surface sand.” He pointed to the bottom of the picture. “This person is actually there!”
The entire room fell silent and Steve felt ill. He could feel the blood rushing out of his long thin face.
The aide put her hand on his arm. “You okay Steve?”
“Other than the fact we got a picture of a guy on Mars? Yeah I’m fine.” He replied sarcastically as he ran his hands through his unruly hair. Steve was thinking about what Joe had said. Impossible, just a coincidence.
The next few days were complete chaos. Non-stop meetings about how somebody could have hacked into their system. Upper management refused to believe the picture was real. No matter what the evidence pointed to anyone at JPL risked career suicide if they said out loud the picture was authentic. The entire time Steve kept his mouth shut. Even he was in denial.
By Sunday Steve needed some time off. Drinking his morning coffee he wanted to do yard work and nothing else. Still, he could not get the events of the last few days out of his head. Inside JPL felt like a stirred up hornets’ nest. Most of upper management was convinced the entire thing was an elaborate hoax. But Steve and his people who worked directly on the rovers knew that was impossible.
The doorbell rang and it brought him back to the present. He opened the door and there stood Joe. Steve tried not to look shocked as he felt his heart speed up and his face flush.
“What do you want?” Steve blurted out as he struggled not to hyperventilate.
“I have your rover here.” Joe turned and pointed to the pickup in the driveway.
Steve felt as if his head would explode as he began to shake. The events of the last few days were too much. “Look man, this is not cool. I don’t have time for this.” Steve slammed the door and leaned against the wall grabbing his head. The doorbell rang again.
Steve flung the door open. “Get the hell out of here or I will call the police!” He yelled.
“Hold on. Just take a look at what I have.” Joe backed up pointing to his truck. He quickly walked to the back of the pickup and threw off the tarp. There it was.
At first it did not register in Steve’s mind as he ran to the pickup. It certainly looked like the rover but how could that be? Could it be a replica? Steve looked at Joe but he did not know what to think. To make a replica would take a feat that only JPL could pull off. How the hell did he get a hold of this? Why would someone have a replica of the Mars rover?
“It’s the real thing,” Joe said coolly.
Steve reached out as if to touch it but pulled away.
“Take it to work and check it out. Call me when you want to talk.” Joe gave him the keys to the pickup as he turned to leave.
“Wait, hold on.” Steve called after him. “Why are you doing this?”
“How else could I prove that I have been to Mars?” Joe replied with a slight grin.
Steve sat down on the lawn. The dizziness was starting to make him sick. He rubbed his forehead as Joe walked over to him.
“Run some tests and call me.”
“Call you? Call you for what?” Steve asked in a low whisper.
“We will talk about that when the time comes.
” Joe paused for a moment. “We mean you no harm. Sorry you had to be the one.” He turned and walked down the street.
After a sleepless night of tossing and turning Steve finally approached the pickup in his garage. He grabbed the tarp and hesitated. Throwing it back there stood the rover like a beast about to devour him. He stared at it for some time never being able to touch it.
Later that morning Steve brought the rover to JPL. Driving around to the shipping and receiving area he pulled right up into the building.
“What the hell is that?” demanded Payton one of the rover engineers.
“What does it look like?” Steve growled as he opened the back of the pickup.
“Here, help me with this.” Steve waved Payton over as he started to remove the baseplate.
“Oh my God this isn’t a replica.” Payton gulped as she curiously looked all over the rover.
They gently laid the plate on the tailgate.
“How can that be?” Payton gasped.
“Thank God. At least I haven’t gone completely crazy.” Steve responded with a look of relief on his face.
“No one knew about that it was never released to the press.” Payton covered her mouth.
“Yeah I know.” Steve stepped back letting out a big sigh.
They stood in silence gazing at the signatures of all the rover team members. Every person who worked on Scout had etched their names on the underside of the rover’s base plate. This was all the proof Steve needed. After a series of tests and checking all the downloads they realized without a doubt they had the Mars rover Scout. Steve spent the whole time reminding everyone to keep quiet about this. It would do no good to start a panic. Later Steve along with upper management stood huddled around the rover. Now that they were convinced it was real no one knew what to do next.
“What did this guy say? I mean exactly.” Mike wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. “What was his name? Joe?” Mike was the director of the Mars rover program. He ran a tight ship and always followed procedure.
“Well, he said ‘sorry I had to be the one’.” Steve muttered under his breath.
“Look Steve this is serious. We could have a real problem here.” Mike rubbed his forehead wondering what to do next. “We don’t know what we are dealing with.”
The silence was deafening as the group stared at the rover.
Mike was a hard person to work for, he never seemed to sleep. Steve would come into work and see an email sent from Mike delivered at four a.m. He never called in sick or took vacations. The man was all work and no play. You could not pull the wool over his eyes. He had brains and seemed to know a little bit about everything. But no classroom or text book had taught them about alien contact. There was no manual on how to deal with this. They were basically making it up as they went. Eventually they found themselves in the White House.
Never thought I would be here. Steve thought to himself as he sat in the waiting room. He wanted to be in the meeting when the President was told, if but for nothing else, just to see the look on his face.
As Steve sat in the White House he recalled the extraordinary events of the last few weeks. Each time they told the story to the next higher authority the same thing happened. At first they got this crazy look and then a silent stare. Of course, no one believed them. They had to actually bring the General or the Director or whomever to the rover and show them the evidence. Some people could not believe it, no matter what they were told or saw with their own eyes.
As Carl Sagan once said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” And as they got higher up the food chain Dr. Crane the NASA director was finally on board. Once they had Dr. Crane convinced things began to happen quickly. The last hurdle was General Kinly, an Airforce General in charge of space command which oversees all the spy satellites. Convincing him was no small feat, but the evidence could not be dismissed. Finally, it was decided, time to go to the President.
Calling a special meeting with the President, Dr. Crane and General Kinly were about to break the news to the entire White House staff for the first time. They had no idea what they were going to say. Neither man had more than a few hours’ sleep a night since they were let in on the secret.
Kinly wanted to do the talking since he believed this was a military matter. He was uncomfortably squeezed into his chair and kept wiping the beads of sweat off his chubby face into an already damp handkerchief. So much adrenalin pumped through his system he could hardly breathe. The Dr. Crane looked at him concerned about his health.
“Mr. President, I have some important information that I need to tell you.” General Kinly’s voice trembled.
“Okay General, but please be brief. I don’t have all day.” The President shuffled some papers looking like he wanted to leave.
The General stood up and tried to speak, but words would not come. Then he sat back down. All eyes were upon him, and everyone looked at each other baffled by his odd behavior.
“Well Mr. President,” he started. “I mean it seems that,” the General could not form any sentences and he was starting to hyperventilate.
“Are you OK? Should we call a doctor?” asked the President.
“An alien has returned the Mars rover Scout that was stuck in the Martian sand. We have confirmed that it is the actual vehicle we launched into space.” Dr. Crane stated bluntly.
Everyone in the room waited for the punchline.
After a few moments the chief of staff finally spoke up. “An alien? What kind of alien?” He leaned forward in his chair grasping the table as if he were going to fall over. “Have you met this alien?”
“No sir, but someone on our staff knows this person, and he appears to be, well, he is ah, human.” Dr. Crane flatly responded.
“As soon as we confirmed the vehicle’s authenticity we wanted to inform you before we contacted this, ah, ‘person’.” The General finally spoke as a low murmur filled the room.
“Okay hold on.” The President stood up holding out his hands across the table silencing everyone. “Start from the beginning.” He sat back down leaning forward on the table.
The General gathered himself and apologized for being so nervous. This news had blindsided everyone involved he explained. He started the story from the beginning. About how Joe had given Steve who was one of the rover program managers a pickup truck with Scout in the back. He told them about the etching of their names on the baseplate and how it had all the program updates JPL sent to Mars. He also was absolutely certain that it’s not some kind of replica. He finished by saying that Steve was the only one who had contact with Joe and according to him, seemed normal.
“You’re sure this is not some kind of elaborate hoax? Could this have been done by someone on the inside at JPL? I refuse to believe that aliens would contact us in this way.” The President shuffled nervously in his chair.
“And how should aliens contact us Mr. President?” Dr. Crane sarcastically replied.
The room fell silent as the President gave him a cold stare.
“Actually I think it’s a brilliant way to contact us. Landing on the White House lawn could throw the world into a tailspin.” offered one of the Presidents staff members.
The President leaded back in his chair rubbing his chin deep in thought. He finally stood up. After a few moments he looked over at General Kinly. “I believe you two are convinced but you have to realize that this is pretty big to say the least. I need to be more convinced before doing anything. Please everyone keep your mouths shut about this until I give the word.” The President started to walk out the room. Before exiting, he turned and looked at the NASA director. “Do you really believe these guys?”
“Who, Joe?” asked Dr. Crane.
“No, I mean the JPL team.”
“Yes, I really do.” responded Dr. Crane nodding his head.
The President gave a big sigh, staring at the wall. Holy crap he thought, why did this have to happen on my watch and what the hell does this
Joe want? “Look, I need some more proof before I do anything.” The President turned to Tom, one of his most trusted aides. “Look into this Tom and report back to me when you’re convinced.” The President looked sternly at Tom. “Leave no stone unturned. You have all the resources at your disposal.”
“Yes sir Mr. President.” Tom rose to his feet as he straightened out his jacket. “Mr. President, what should we do about Joe?”
The President looked back. “Dig up anything you can.” He turned and walked away.
“Right away sir.” Tom nodded as he stood at attention. As soon as the President left he bolted out the room.
Tom didn’t believe any of this crap. In his mind, if you could not see it, touch it or finger print it, “it” did not exist.
Determined to get to the bottom of this elaborate hoax Tom went straight to ground zero, JPL. He knew a scandal this huge would kill the careers of the JPL team and Dr. Crane.
Before he left he contacted the secret service and told them Joe had made a credible threat to the President. Tom knew that would get them going and they would dig up anything and everything on this guy. They would follow him everywhere and know everything there was to know within days. Joe, Tom thought, your ass is mine.
Tom looked and loved the part of being a top level Presidential Aide. He carried a gun, although he didn’t need to, along with three pagers and two cell phones. Operational security and “trade craft” were a way of life. Always paranoid he would look around before making a phone call, even in his own house. Tom looked in his 30’s, not bad for a man in his 40’s, had a beautiful wife and two children. He never drank and had a hard time relaxing. When he got home after a hard day at the office he usually turned on the computer and continued working.
Tom sat in the White House waiting to see the President. This last week would be one he’d never forget. It had been a flurry of traveling, interrogating, reports and meetings. Everything he uncovered slowly convinced him of a horrible reality, it was all true.
He sat in the chair tapping his foot nervously on the ground. The door opened and he was called in. The President and several top cabinet members were sitting on the couches in the Oval office.
“Tom, what did you find?”
“Well, let me start with Joe. The guy is simply your average Joe.” Tom replied as he sat down on the couch with the others. “He’s a veteran of the armed forces, an engineer, married with no children. He’s led a benign quiet life with no close friends. We couldn’t find anything on the guy.” Tom looked disappointed.
“What about the rover?” Kenny Blatowski, head of the Department of Defense rudely blurted out. Kenny was so thin he looked like a skull with skin stretched over it. None of his clothes fit and if he put his hands down to his side his watch would fall off.
“Well, let me start by saying that the rover at JPL is the one from Mars.” Tom let out a big sigh scratching the back of his head. “First, there were three functional rovers built. Two went to Mars and the remaining one is still at JPL.”
“Why did they build three?” The President leaned back crossing his arms.
“The third one is for troubleshooting and testing. If one of the Mars rovers gets in a jam they can play with the one at the lab.” Tom answered and the President nodded.
“The signatures on the baseplate are the most damning piece of evidence. All the downloads sent to the rover match. There is no getting around it. It’s authentic.” Tom finished. He was disappointed. Secretly he wanted to catch these guys.
“So you’re trying to tell me this person has somehow returned the rover from Mars?” The tone of Mary Carver voice could not hide her disbelief. She was the Homeland Security Chief, an elegantly attractive lady in her early 50’s and not intimidated by anyone.
Tom said nothing only nodding his head. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a photo. “Before all this happened, the rover sent back this picture.” He leaned over and handed it to the President.
“I thought that rover was dead?” inquired John Rogstad the Vice President. He leaned over straining his neck to see the picture. The Vice President had the shape of a rugby player, but his friendly talkative demeanor put you at ease.
“Yea, somehow it powered on and took this.” Tom shrugged his shoulders. “All the Ph.D.’s at NASA insist it’s authentic.”
The President flopped it on the coffee table between the couches. Everyone leaned in staring at the photo of a person standing on what looked like Mars.
“Big deal. Photoshop.” Kenny Blatoski arrogantly blurted out as he leaned back on the couch. “My son can do that on our computer at home.”
“Oh Yeah? Can your son download this photo from the relay satellite orbiting Mars?” Tom snapped back, he couldn’t help himself.
The room fell silent as Mr. Blatoski glared back at Tom.
Sensing the tension in the room the President broke the silence. “Tom do you really believe this is actual contact with alien life?”
“To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. But the rover sitting at JPL is the actual rover we sent to Mars called Scout. That much I am sure of.” Tom sat at the edge of the couch looking the President directly in the eye.
The Presidents face grew pale as he sat motionless, “My God,” he said under his breath. “Oh my God.”
